Late start a lift for Royals ace

Late start a lift for Royals ace - The West Australian

Prolific midfielder Brendan Lee is fit and ready to lead premiership favourites East Perth into another finals campaign next month.

The Royals co-captain missed the first six weeks of the season with a badly broken finger but quickly bounced back to re-establish himself as one of the competition's premier ball winners.

He was captain of the State team that belted a NEAFL representative side in May and will play his 100th senior game for East Perth in tomorrow's clash with Perth at Lathlain Park.

Lee said the enforced break at the start of the year and working under expert coaching staff had left him in top shape for the business end of the season, with the Royals charging towards a possible second successive grand final appearance.

"Having Brian Dawson as coach and with his background in sports science, I went into last year's finals series feeling fresher than ever," Lee said.

"After missing that month and a half (this year) I feel pretty similar and I probably should have some fresh legs."

East Perth had strung together 10 straight wins before being beaten by Subiaco a fortnight ago - their second loss to the Lions in two meetings this season.

The latest defeat stung the Royals and they bounced back to record a strong win over top-four rivals Swan Districts last week.

Lee said there had been a renewed focus on making the most of scoring opportunities and re-establishing the midfield dominance that had been a hallmark of East Perth's success this season.

"Subiaco are a very good side and we haven't beaten them this year," Lee said.

"They're the ones to beat. We are not getting too stressed out about the loss but we've got a lot of things that we need to work on over the next three weeks.

"Hopefully we'll meet Subiaco again later in the year."

·WAFL officials are looking into an incident involving Peel coach Cam Shepherd and the alleged verbal abuse of umpires after the Thunder's narrow loss to South Fremantle last Saturday.

Peel threw away a 28-point lead and were on the wrong end of a 24-7 free-kick count.

"Cam Shepherd has not been fined but the WAFL is looking into it and considering information that's been gathered," a WAFL spokesperson said.